Nuclear Thread - 3

[acharya]

For and against

No one could have summed up the situation more clearly than Justice V.R. Krishna Iyer ("A betrayal of India's constitutional vision," July 17).<b> Even a speck of support for the Prime Minister's stand on the nuclear deal should disappear without a trace after reading it. </b>If Dr. Singh had shown a similar zeal and tenacity to settle the border disputes with China and Pakistan, he would have made a permanent place for himself in the hall of the nation's great.

N. Khosla,
Panchkula

The article clearly enunciated the implications of the nuclear deal. But of what use will be convincing the common people of its after-effects if we cannot convince our Prime Minister?

Devendra L. Abbigeri,
Dharwad
<b>
Ours is a country of the netas, by the netas and for the netas. Unless they stop believing that they are the sole authority to decide what is good for the country, any advice given by Justice Iyer or Ashok Parthasarathi (July 15) will be rendered meaningless.</b>

Raghavan Natarajan,
New Delhi

Justice Iyer has strongly and cogently brought out how suicidal and thoughtless the ominous nuclear deal could be. To reiterate, we need no nuclear imports (with strings attached, surely) to attain self-sufficiency in energy. It is a sad fact that India's national policy has veered away from the non-alignment of the Nehru-Indira Gandhi era to embrace U.S. big business investment.

Cdr. R. Ganapathi (retd.),
Chennai
<b>
Justice Iyer's advice "Do not nuclearise our freedom" is the best that could have been rendered to the government. </b>He has appealed to "every patriot in Parliament" to ponder over the implications of the deal. But how many patriots do we have in our Parliament today?

Rameeza A. Rasheed,
Chennai

The deal will end nuclear apartheid and Dr. Singh deserves the highest praise for going ahead with it. It is a tragedy that our political parties do not show the maturity to put the national interest ahead of assumed short-term electoral gains.

Srinivas Chandrasekhar
Mandapati,
Kancheepuram
<b>
The reason the nuclear deal has become so contentious is that it has been highly politicised. It is meant to address our energy issues and should be dealt with as such.</b> As a first step, a committee comprising the country's top scientists, especially those who have no political affiliations, should be constituted. The government should treat the committee's report with respect.

Shahnaz Mohamed Thahir,
Edappally